Monday, 16 May 2016

SAINTS PRESERVE US

America
Is Swill

Like economics, advertising (influence) and
marketing (sales) are not exact sciences. The dollar value of a particular
brand, its name, its wordmark or logo, and its built-in historic equity, is
thought to be worth some ten-to 20-per-cent of the revenue it generates on
behalf of its stakeholder(s). A brand is essentially an abstract asset,
something organic, something that has evolved. Yet more often than not its
managers and advertising agency partners will ham-handedly attempt to project
their own fantasy characteristics upon their brand, ones they believe consumers
should want to share and pay for; sort of manipulating the cart before the
Clydesdales, if you will.

The
Beaverton is an amusing Canadian news parody website.
It recently ran a story accusing our Tim Hortons coffee shop chain (now a
foreign owned sister brand of Burger King) of exploiting Canadian nationalism
and Canadians’ hockey passion for strictly commercial purposes. Any pretense of
satire was lost by The Beaverton
simply repeating the hooks of an orchestrated and emotionally-tinged, long term
and well executed corporate advertising strategy. The piece read like an overly
earnest university newspaper pseudo expose or one those left wing diatribes you
come across in the complimentary vestibule weeklies you flip through whilst
sitting alone in a dark bar in the afternoon. It’s too easy to sprinkle maple
sugar on donut holes in a takeout box: ain’t nothing funny; ain’t no news here.

The
Onion, the American equivalent to Beaverton, did not last week
report that Budweiser beer was re-branding itself as America beer from now until
November. My source was Adweek, a
reputable advertising industry journal. Still, I glanced at my Elvis Presley
desktop calendar to make sure its pages had moved far beyond the April fools. I
thought, Jesus, this isn’t some lame joke; this is not a misguided attempt at
satire.

Budweiser is an Anheuser-Busch brand of
lager beer, first brewed in the United
States in 1876. The brand is now the
property of AB InBev, headquartered in Leuven,
Belgium. AB
InBev services one-quarter of the planet’s beer market. AB InBev is a corporate
octopus, the spawn of mergers amongst Belgium’s
Interbrew, Brazil’s AmBev
and America’s
Anheuser-Busch. Ricardo Marques, Vice President of Budweiser said in a
statement, ‘Budweiser has always strived to embody America in a bottle, and we’re
honored to salute this great nation where our beer has been passionately brewed
for 140 years.’ The campaign’s slogan is ‘America is in Your Hands,’ stray
caps and all.

Nostalgic nags aside, Budweiser has always
hitched its brand to sports. It’s common for a brand to alter its packaging to
commemorate a major sporting event for which it has paid sponsorship rights, or
celebrate its own heritage with an anniversary retro look. In this case
Budweiser is taking the opposite tack, relying on its classic and easily
recognized packaging to alleviate any consumer confusion over its temporary
name change to America.
The rationale for America
lager is, to quote Marques, ‘…celebrate America and Budweiser’s shared
values of freedom and authenticity.’ Rio 2016 is just around the corner. ‘We
are embarking on what should be the most patriotic summer that this generation
has ever seen…’ And sales are declining, swallowed by micro-brewers and
vintners.

Bud Light rivals Diet Coke as the absolute
apex of a successful brand extension. Their shared subliminal message was
deviously simple: Drink more! Bud Light launched its politically themed, tongue
in cheek Bud Light Party campaign during last February’s Super Bowl.
Budweiser’s, erm, America’s ‘America is in Your Hands’ seems to be a more sober
attempt orchestrated from Europe to seek some common ground in a New World
country deeply riven by partisanship. The duration of the ad campaign aligns
with what could be the grimmest and most divisive presidential campaign in the
history of the United States.
And while the rest of the world white knuckles the outcome, why not add alcohol
to the shouting in contested open carry states?

It’s possible that on the morning of Wednesday,
November 9th the American electorate will come to and wonder just
what the hell they did the day before. Budweiser is one of the globe’s great
brands, but by jingo that doesn’t mean it’s great beer. And so before that
fateful fall morning the Vice President of Budweiser might wake up regretting
what he has wrought, the potential damage to his brand’s equity and integrity,
because I can now truthfully say without fear of offending our neighbours,
friends and the lunatic fringe to the south that America has lost its way.